BRICK LANE

Brick Lane is a film about an Indian woman living in a bearable but unsatisfying life in England. She was set up to marry her husband by her father without ever meeting the man, and her husband has no sympathy for her feelings or happiness. The film has a feminist vibe to it, as the main character is a woman, and the movie is made to instill frustration and empathy in to the viewers. At first, Nazneen, the main character, simply sits back and lets her husband walk all over her. She is trying to save money for a plane ticket home to visit her sister, so she buys a sewing machine. Her husband, who doesn't approve of his wife making perhaps more money than he, buys a computer and doesn't tell her that she will be the one paying it off. There is nothing Nazneen can do but work harder to pay off the computer. This film makes the audience so frustrated with Nazneen's situation. She is trapped in a situation with no easy way out. She has an affair with a younger man, but when things start getting too serious, she realizes this is not what she wants. To the surprise of everyone, she works things out with her husband, and although they stay somewhat together, he moves back to India, and she stays in Brick Lane with her two daughters. This is the most shocking part of all, since all through the film, she wants to go home to Bangladesh, but in the end, she realizes that England is her home now. This film is not what one would expect. It has feminist themes, however, she resolves her problems in a very unextreme way. The audience is expecting her to leave her husband and make some sort of feminist statement. However, she stays true to her values, and the audience finds out that she actually does love her husband. He turns out not to be the horrible guy everyone thinks he is. This film was a very emotional film, and the filmmaker did a good job engaging the audience and call attention not only to feminism, but also to the importance of family.